Molina ejection
 

We'll see how MLB handles this.

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?co...y_17598943&v=3

Nice little unpaid vacation for Mr. Molina is in the works.

It couldn't have been a strike because there was no white strikezone box in the picture so, I guess we will never know.

I am curious to know what happened earlier in the game between Molina and Rob Drake? This seemed to be an FU kind of call. The pitch wasn't even close. Players have a great view of the inside corner and Molina knew that pitch wasn't a strike. Doesn't give him any cause to do what he did mind you, but there seems to be something else going on there. If you look at the pitch tracker in the replay, even it had the pitch as way off the plate.

MLB umpires don't miss an easy inside corner fastball like that for no reason. Anyone see the game and know what kind of back story there is...

I really wish more broadcasts would move to the CF for their pitch cam. This off to the side crap gives me neither a good angle on height or width. At least in CF I get width, which would be nice to see here.

I agree though, there has to be some back story on this most players seem to maybe say something but he goes from 0-50 quickly (then 50-60 shortly after he is gone).

I agree there's probably something more to this...still no excuse for what Molina did. I thought Drake had a good zone all night. And yes, I'm a Cardinals fan and I thought that pitch was a ball.

FWIW, there was a Foxtrax thing on the screen during the game. They had it up all night in the lower-right corner. It showed the pitch as a ball and it looked like a ball to the naked eye.

With that said, Molina went way overboard and I too think something else had gone on earlier in the game.

Molina (according to the paper) had said the plate umpire had stiffed the Cards on a couple of calls.

Molina said, "The call, obviously the call, that was a bad call," Molina said. "He missed three pitches for us, and then he gave the pitches for them. That's not fair. ...

Here's the full article...
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseb...a4bcf6878.html

10 games, appeal, shortened to 5. Ya heard it here first. ;)

5 games, appeal, drops the appeal and takes the time during the last two CHC games and the three LAD games.

Must have been the glare from the ribbon boards that caused Drake to miss these pitches.

Drake had called Shumaker out at first the game before and Shu chirped about it in the post game. Then Drake rang him up on a high strike. Maybe Molina had that on his mind as well.

That may have been a REALLY, REALLY bad camera angle but, I didn't see the catchers mit move AT ALL. Nada, none, strike three, sit your arse down.

:confused::confused:

So I see that the PU had to "take" the bodily pushes from this loonie-bin.

At what point would an umpire be permitted to defend himself with force?

Probably around the point he doesn't want his job anymore.

Those little boxes are not accurate. So who cares what that shows? All I know is that pitch looked awful close and the catcher did not move his glove. Swing at the damn pitch and you will not have to worry about what the umpire calls. Just a thought.

Peace

From an article on Yahoo (emphasis mine):

I agree, swing the bat. Maybe its a little in, but catcher doesn't move his mitt at all, its a strike.

Sadly, the players can act like idiots and get nothing but a slap on the hand, its getting worse and worse in baseball.

Gonna take someone getting punched before they change it though.

Thanks
David

Catcher doesn't move his mitt so it's a strike? That's how you call it?:eek:

Kinda what I was thinking here.
I was taught that I call strikes, not catchers, batters, coaches, scorekeepers, grandmas, etc

If the catcher is set up behind the plate and he doesn't move his glove, YEP, it's a strike.

Molina was just looking for something else, he messed up, got busted inside. With the player's attitudes today, it couldn't have been his fault, nothing is ever the player's fault, someone must have screwed him. That's the attitude.

I hope he gets 10 games and a big fine.

Beisides you, who said that because the catcher didn't move his glove that it was a strike?

Do you umpire TBall only or do you do Rec games too?

Better yet with two strikes, generally the batter is taking anything close, correct?

I agree, catchers don't always set up a target in the strikezone but, unless you have some video to prove otherwise (and not some freaking media appeasing rectangle on your TV screen, with a manually inputed dot) then that pitch was close. Not only was the pitch right to the mit, it was dead center of the catchers body. So if the catcher was set up way inside then, we probably wouldn't have seen him because he would be hidden behind the batter from that camera angle. If he was set dead center on the inside edge then Molina either got fooled and decided to take out on Drake or he is just sucks.

Using your logic above, we can assume you may be a little bias here?

Molina is a catcher. He would have been upset if he did not get that pitch a strike. And as a Cardinal fan he should have acted better than he did. I have no idea if the pitch was right. Heck we all miss pitches, but when the target is hit so accurately and it is a fastball, usually that is going to get called a strike. The only way it should not have been called a strike is if the catcher clearly set up outside the zone or way off the plate. That was hard to tell, but if the pitch was thrown that accurately I am not sure why Molina would overreact to that pitch being called a strike. Again a catcher often wants that pitch called or will complain it is not called.

Peace

From the camera angle, I can't tell where F2 set up, so I can't tell whether not moving the mitt signals a strike or a ball.

From the camera angle, I can't tell where the pitch was relative to the plate.

The "white box" doesn't tell you much, since the strike zone exists in 3 dimensions, not 2.

IF the batter was looking away, that can make a pitch on the inside corner look way inside.

All that is moot, of course, since none of it excuses his behavior one bit.

How soon we forget......

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=2689415


Molina's a punk.

Regardless of whether Drake was right or wrong, Molina deserves a hefty suspension for that. How long does it take MLB to deal with stuff like this, anyway?

Now there is definite proof that that pitch was inside. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

I have land in Florida that I can give you a great deal on too.

asdf, did they pull the link on you. I get this: We are sorry, but you have reached this page in error.

Brooks has Drake calling that strike all night. Look at the normalized all-pitch tracker. (That is, if you want to keep using this as your evaluation tool.)

It's the same pitch he would flip out on (see the 2008 video) if he was catching.

I just clicked on the link and the video came up.

You could go to MLB video, type "Molina ejection" in the search box and it should give it to you.

You'll be treated to the professional way he took his equipment off piece by piece and thew it at Paul Schreiber back in 2008.

Ironically, it happened in Milwaukee as well.....

I think it's suppose to come down sometime today.

Cardinals' Molina suspended for five games | MLB.com: News

1. 5 games is a ****ing joke. How is he not out at least 10?

2. For all those *****ing about Pitchf/x or other similar technology all I have to say is that I trust it a hell of a lot more than I trust some guy sitting on his couch watching on TV. MLB trusts it enough that they determine playoff assignments based on PUs performance according to such technology.

Let's all pretend for a moment that we all agree that it was a ball by a couple of inches. Does that excuse Molina's behavior? Not a chance.

I predicted a 5 game suspension. Baseball has historically not stood by its umpires. Can you imagine the suspension if an NFL player bumped one of its officials? NBA official?

Precisely, in Ernie Shore's perfect game where he relieved Babe Ruth after he was ejected - Ruth got a 10 game suspension for hitting the umpire in the head. Here is a good article on the topic
Blame baseball for shameful treatment of umpires - MLB - CBSSports.com Baseball

No, he's a rat!

I got some beautiful land in Floriida to sell you also, trust me iit's a good deal.

It's a strike when HP says it's a strike. It's a ball when HP says it's a ball. It's foul when the appropriate umpire says it's foul. It's fair when the appropriate umpire says it's fair (although that can sometimes be corrected).

Getting in the umpires face in the manner displayed in this case is NEVER acceptable and should NEVER be tolerated regardless of what pitch data shows after the fact.

I emailed your post to a ML umpire last night. I think he's still laughing.

I can't recall a singular suspension for bumping an official in the NFL. NBA, who cares.

I recall a lineman who got hit in the face/eye with a penalty flag (weighted). I think he shoved the Ref. Not sure if he got suspended

Referee #42 Jeff Triplette threw a holding flag using established NFL mechanics and the flag's trajectory ended up between the helmet and facemask of Orlando Brown. I believe he was suspended for shoving Triplette. He was out of football only a few years later.

Yep, but that was shoving. I can think of a few incidents where a player has bumped an official, but I can't name them (other than Steve Tasker, who couldn't be suspended since it was the last game of his career.)

Here we go:
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d...-with-official

No suspension.